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Do Objectivists Tip?

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McGroarty

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I rarely tip, but then I live in Britain and we dont really have that social custom over here. I find the idea of tipping for average service to be bizarre - if you receive service that is of a far higher quality than you would expect, then tipping might be acceptable. But if the service is just that which you would expect, then theres no reason to give them anything extra.

edit: even for good service, it seems completely arbitrary who actually gets a tip. Waiters, pizza delivery boys, and bartenders do, but fast food workers, shop assisstants and binmen dont. There doesnt seem to be any real logic behind this.

Edited by Hal
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Perhaps someone in the industry can answer a simple question: It used to be that 10 percent was considered an "average" tip. In my youth, 15 percent became the "normal" amount.

Now I hear some people say that anything under 20 percent is reserved for poor service!

Dec 28, 2025

I always tip 30% if the service is average and make it 40% if it is good.

If the service is poor, I tip only 20%.

:(

Edited by shakthig
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I usually tip 20% if the service is adequate or better if I am in a low priced restaurant - more if it is exceptional. If I am in a higher priced restaurant, I tip 15% for adequate service and higher for better. I figure it is just as much of a task to wait on me in a lower priced restaurant as it is in a higher priced one so the staff in a lower priced one deserves a higher percentage. I also am more likely to be dining alone in a lower priced restaurant than if I am in a higher priced one - so that, too, makes me regard a higher percentage as being more appropriate.

I do try to tip decently because I recognize the fact that some people in this world are simply jerks - they think that the "power" to determine whether or not the person serving them gets an extra few bucks in tips entitles them to make them jump through all sorts of hoops and treat them like house slaves. And, of course, the waiter or waitress who has to deal with such people is not in a position to tell them exactly where they can stick their extra few bucks.

Some years ago, it got to the point that I became extremely embarrassed to go out to eat in public with a particular former friend of mine because of the way he treated wait staff. He was one of those people who watched too many television programs about the old fashioned aristocracy - and he actually began to fancy himself as such a person. He would talk to restaurant staff in a condescending tone as if they were dirt - and once his meal was served, he would make a big production of calling the waitress over by loudly calling out "Oh, Miss!" and then complaining that something was just not quite right or by having her constantly go fetch him things. Obviously it is a pretty pathetic person who derives his sense of power and self-worth from barking orders to a service employee who is not in a position to speak back. Unfortunately, such people are not all that uncommon and service people have to deal with them all the time. I actually judge the people I know by how they treat waiters, clerks, cashiers and the like - and if I observe them treating such people disrespectfully, I regard that as sort of an insight into their overall character.

I make it a point to be friendly to service people - and if I am not in a mood to be friendly, then I at least try to be polite. I recognize that service people are not always responsible for the policies of higher management and try to take that into consideration. The way I look at it, to leave a tip smaller than a waitress deserves is morally, though obviously not legally, to deprive that person of their rightful pay. There have, however, been a few occasions when I have received very bad or rude service - and in those cases, I have pulled the two-cent tip trick as a means of making my displeasure known.

As to that former friend who treated wait staff badly - I wonder how many times, when he wasn't looking, such an employee coughed up a nice big wad of.....well, you know what.....into his food or drink. Having a vivid imagination combined with a weak stomach, I make it a point to try my best not to do anything to antagonize those who prepare and serve the food I am about to eat.

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I rather agree, Dismuke. There is a quote by Dave Barry: "A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person." It seems to me that manners, generally speaking, are becoming non-existent. Oh, for the days when people acted like ladies and gentlemen!

As for the difference between Canada and the United States, I find that people in Canada are generally more well-mannered in public settings. I can't attest to differences in tipping practices. Canadians are polite, they do not speak loudly and inappropriately on their cell phones or to people in person, and they have much better table manners. Of course, they also generally believe they are superior to Americans, perhaps for these reasons, which is rather a turn-off! :(

I generally leave 20% every time, but I think after reading some of the posts here, I'm going to reduce my "adequate service" tip level to 15% and my "superior service" tip level to 20%. I think I've been tipping too much. :P

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There are obvious reasons to tip when you're a regular customer. But suppose you're passing through a city far from home and eating in a place you've never been to before and will never see again. (Or if you do, it will be years from now, long after your waiter has moved on to another job.) Assuming the service was adequate or better, do you tip? If so, why? It's not required, and you'll gain no benefit from it.

The preceding questions were rhetorical. The vast majority of people would tip in that situation, simply because they have a deeply-ingrained belief that they should. If we could reliably foster the same sort of belief in regard to other types of service, we'd have a practical answer to the question of how to fund national defense in an Objectivist political system.

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Well, some people might say I am frugal/cheap, but I say I have very high standards.

I will only tip if they give exceptional service. Otherwise, I won't tip.

I honestly do not understand why someone would tip even though they got average to poor service.

To me, tipping is a direct statement of their quality of service.

Edited by carriew7
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When one goes into a restaurant (or any business for that matter) you are the customer and the business is the vendor. They set a price for the "product" and you either buy it or don't.

In a restaurant, the product is the food+the waiter's services. Therefore, the prices on the menu should include tip. If the waiter does not provide good service, so what. If the food sucks, is it the waiter's fault? If the waiter is a jerk, that reflects poorly on the establishment and a complaint should be submitted. The waiter could get low tips and be on the job performing mediocre service for years without the owners knowing. I think ratings, not tips are in order. The ratings should determine the profit share of the waiters.

What if an airline gate agent did not perform good customer service? Does the price of the airline ticket go down? No way!

And... is it expected to give the gate agent a tip for helping you get you a better seat? No. Some services never get tipped, but some do.

I guess what I'm getting at is: Why does any "service" need to be tipable?

From doormans to bag-boys, limo-drivers to public bus-drivers... Who really "deserves" a tip?

(BTW: I'm not a cheapskate, I tip 20% on avg. for decent service)

You may not be a cheapskate, but you are ignorant. You've never heard of haggling? Obviously you've never bought a car or house. The price for a given product can be highly negotiable.

You'd be amazed at how much of your food prep is actually done by your waiter, too. Next time you go into a mid to low-end place, take a look at your waiter's hands. You see all those scabs, nicks, etc.? Those aren't from his hobby, those are from, say, taking hot potatoes out of the oven with his bare hands (something I've done, and not just once or twice, I mean every 2-3 minutes for hours on end), chopping vegetables, hauling garbage, picking up broken plates, etc. etc. etc. Ever wonder where your waiter goes when they're not at your table? So if the food sucks, it very well may be his fault.

The service, on the other hand, is not under the restaurant's control. That's why the services are billed separately. As for "profit sharing", most restaurants operate on a shoestring budget. That's why the one up the street is going out of business just as a new one is opening. Profits get plowed back into the business as fast as they come in, otherwise you're dead in the water.

In the U.S. the "wage" for "tipped" positions (these are actually mandated by law) is something like 25-50% of the "actual" minimum wage; this is what your employer has to pay you regardless of how much you make in tips. If you fail to clear minimum wage in tips, your employer is required to make up the difference. Any server that's only making minimum wage would leave that restaurant instantly, btw, the job is incredibly taxing, and from what I've seen working doubles and triples is not uncommon. (That means you work two or three meals in the same day, i.e. 12 to 15 hours sometimes.)

"Tipped" employees are required to report their earnings every day, so consistent low tips are tracked.

At the restaurant where I worked, the servers paid the bussers out of their tips for bussing their tables; if you don't tip your server well you're screwing him coming and going, because if he can't pay the busser he can't get his tables cleared off so his earning power goes way down.

In general, if someone is providing you a personal service (cutting your hair, bringing you your food, carrying your bags, driving a tow truck out to the middle of nowhere to winch your car out of a ditch) then you should tip them. If they are there for general service purposes (someone manning a bay at Jiffy Lube, for instance, or the front desk at a hotel) you don't tip them.

If you want a real tipping conundrum, try this one on for size: should you accept a tip to seat someone sooner at a restaurant? I've had people offer me money for this when I was a hostess. I always felt uncomfortable with the offer because I didn't think it was "fair", that and I hated all our customers equally so if the SOB couldn't be bothered to make ONE SIMPLE PHONE CALL and MAKE A RESERVATION they deserved to sit there cooling their heels like the REST of the idiots. I mean, seriously, who expects to go to a restaurant at 7pm on a Friday and not have to wait? HELLOOOO it's the busiest time on the busiest day.

Food service sucks, by the way. Glad I'm out of it.

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I usually tip, but generally it's because I've worked in the service industry myself for the last three years and I know how much it sucks. I don't do it because they need it, but I tend to tip in the hopes that it will encourage other people to tip me when I deliver their pizzas or wash their dishes or what-have you. I don't tip on a percentage scale because it doesn't make any sense to me. Carrying $20 worth of food to a table isn't noticably more difficult than carrying $30 worth of food to a table--and it makes even less sense to tip delivery drivers based on check amounts since the effort involved is nearly identical anyway: driving to the edge of my delivery zone to deliver a $10 is actually more of a pain in my ass than it is to do it for a $30 or $40 order. I usually throw a couple bucks on the table usually regardless of the check amount, with the knowledge that said tip would take the server an hour or three to earn on wages [especially with taxes].

That said, I agree implicitly with Mister Pink's discourse on tipping in the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs. I don't get angry when people don't tip, and I don't expect it as a given. Sure, it's nice to have an extra few bucks in my pocket [i just finished up a stint as a delivery driver no less], but then again I can't exactly tell folks how to spend their cash. I'd be a lot more vocal about the issue though if my employer hadn't already provided a trip-by-trip payout for gas; especially given the recent prices.

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Here in New Zealand, tipping has until recently never really been a major part of life. Sure, some people have always tipped, but for the most part, New Zealanders have not tip even the most expectional service, or at least not usually as much as the %10-%15 that seems more common in other places. This is not due to any lack of gratitude or such, it is just that tipping is not something we seem to think much about for some reason. I myself have only recently started thinking about it.

More recently, over the last few years, the habit of tipping has been growing though, and more and more people are starting to tip, although we Kiwis seem to have little consistent guidance as to how much to tip. Still, it is hardly something you see take place very often, and most workers do not seem to mind the lack too much as far as I know based on expereince and what I know of how New Zealanders think.

Myself, I only tip when I receive significantly better than average service, or if perhaps it is better than average and I except I might be dealing with that person again. Otherwise I see no reason to financially reward them when no financial reward is justified. I generally find being polite and courteous goes a long way towards encouraging good will, and has helped my get repeated good/acceptable service by its self in the past.

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I honestly do not understand why someone would tip even though they got average to poor service.

To me, tipping is a direct statement of their quality of service.

I have one very good reason why I tip for poor service: so they know I didn't just forget, and that I intended to send the message that their service was of no value to me. I've been known to write in $0.06 for a tip on the credit card slip when service was really bad. I've also been known to honestly forget to leave a tip. :)

Edited by dondigitalia
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I think it is interesting that this thread was started under the assumption that tipping is a somewhat altruistic practice. Hence, the name of the thread--Do Objectivists Tip? Then it was discovered most do and here in the U.S. by the greatest majority. The United States is in principle the least altruistic of all nations on earth, and obviously Objectivists such as myself do not follow altruistic premises. So, what I find interesting here is that tipping probably did not start under any altruistic premises after all, i.e., "you should tip because the waitress makes less than minumum wage, but probably for the the complete opposite reason-- the reason why I find it proper to tip-- to reward objective value provided as service to you in the most moral of manners, ie, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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That is insightful, EC.The least altruistic culture comes up with a system which has a voluntary component in the payment larger than the non-altruistic cultures.

Someone mentioned the example of a restaurant you're never going to visit again -- say some highway joint in a far-away state. If one did get good service, why would one tip at such a place? The way I think of it is this: the waiter is part of a deal where there is an implicit understanding that he will be tipped within a certain range (10% - 20%). If the service is good and I walk away without tipping, I would be walking away with a bit of his money.

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The least altruistic culture comes up with a system which has a voluntary component in the payment larger than the non-altruistic cultures.

Which is not at all surprising--after all, it is exactly the notion of a voluntary payment that altruism is dead set against. They want to make all giving mandatory.

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  • 4 weeks later...
If I get a male waiter he's only getting a dollar max in the above situation period unless, there is some extrordinary circumstance I can't think of right now. Poor service and especially not refilling my drink in a timely manner results in no tip.

In other words, I reward generously what I see as added value, and ignore what I see as possessing no additional value to me.

Ouch. I am usually inclined to tip more when I am being served by an attractive young lady, but I certainly wouldn't tip a man LESS for the simple fact that he's a guy.

Tipping is good: 20 years ago, when I worked as a waiter (and loved it), I learned the value of working harder in order to earn more tips. Now, I never leave less than 20-30%.

And remember: if tipping was banned, and the servers had to rely solely on wages, then the cost of your meal would rise accordingly as the owners would have to raise prices to account for much higher fixed costs.

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Tipping is good: 20 years ago, when I worked as a waiter (and loved it), I learned the value of working harder in order to earn more tips. Now, I never leave less than 20-30%.

I don't understand. Are you by some miracle always encountering servers who work extra hard to earn 20-30%, or are you giving excessive tips to those who did not earn them simply because you think being a waiter, as such, is worth 20-30%?

If you had to work hard to get your extra tips, why do the waiters you tip get it by default?

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  • 2 months later...

Back in December I wrote:

I actually judge the people I know by how they treat waiters, clerks, cashiers and the like - and if I observe them treating such people disrespectfully, I regard that as sort of an insight into their overall character.

Turns out that the CEOs of a bunch of major companies completely agree with me on this and use a similar standard when judging people they might have potential business dealings with. This is according to a really nice USA Today article I found while glancing through Yahoo! News. See: http://snipurl.com/p8ge

Here are a few brief excerpts:

They acknowledge that CEOs live in a Lake Wobegon world where every dinner or lunch partner is above average in their deference. How others treat the CEO says nothing, they say. But how others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul.

And beware of anyone who pulls out the power card to say something like, "I could buy this place and fire you," or "I know the owner and I could have you fired." Those who say such things have revealed more about their character than about their wealth and power....

"Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with," [Raytheon CEO Bill] Swanson writes. "Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles."

Also in the same article is an example of behavior that someone I know has encountered. The behavior was so bizarre that I thought it was unique to one specific pathetic individual. Apparently it is more common than I thought:

More recently, she had a boss who would not speak directly to the waiter but would tell his assistant what he wanted to eat, and the assistant would tell the waiter in a comical three-way display of pomposity.

I have to be a bit vague in describing what happened to my friend so that I don't betray information told to me in confidence, but basically he is a highly respected professional whose firm was hired by the wife of a very wealthy and well-known individual. Most of his work on the endeavor involved dealing with various subordinates and assistants - but there were certain decisions that could only have been made by the client herself making a personal meeting necessary. What he described to me about the meeting was exactly like that quote about the guy who wouldn't talk directly to the waiter. This lady had an assistant and it was made clear to my friend that he was not to talk to her directly but only to her assistant. Whenever the lady had a question or wanted to say something, she said it directly to her assistant who then repeated it verbatim to my friend. And his replies were then repeated back verbatim to the lady. It was like talking to her through a translator - except for the fact that everyone in the room spoke and understood the same language. The entire conversation went on in this manner.

I am sure many business people have enough self-esteem to tell the woman exactly where she can stick it - but if one wants to do business with her and have access to her husband's vast fortune, that is one of the hoops that one must jump through. When I learned of this, my reaction was: I have known a number of very sadly and hopelessly pathetic individuals over the years, but this lady is more pathetic than any of them. Sure, she will live the rest of her life being pampered in luxury. But imagine, for a moment, what that woman's psychological state must be like. In her case, I suspect it goes beyond bad character - I think the woman must be seriously sick and the fact that she has been able to escape the material consequences has only made her more so. The odd thing is that my friend tells me that her husband, with whom he has also had business dealings, is the exact opposite - very approachable and down-to-earth.

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If I cannot afford to leave a tip, then I won't go out to eat. I don't see it as altruism, but as a service fee.

I figure it into the budget of eating at a restaurant where there is a waiter or waitress that brings me my food.

Now, if the service is horrible, yes, I won't leave a tip. But, a service is being provided to me. That's the way I look at it. As far as how much to tip, all depends on the service. If I have my kids with me, and the service is excellent, I always leave 20%. This is because there is a bit of a bigger mess at the table, and she/he is always working a bit harder for me.

Now, I was a waitress long ago, so I am reluctant to "stiff" one. However, that doesn't make me altruistic in leaving a tip. It may make me more understanding than some, but also makes me a little more critical. If I could be a waitress and do a good job to earn tips, than anyone can, so they better earn their tip.

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I work in a restaurant nowadays, and over here it is almost unheard of to receive tips the size of what most people here mention. Most of the time it's just a couple percent, because the customer just rounds the check towards the nearest convenient number. It's usually the tourists that tip the best, rather than people who live here and eat here regularly.

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I work in a restaurant nowadays, and over here it is almost unheard of to receive tips the size of what most people here mention. Most of the time it's just a couple percent, because the customer just rounds the check towards the nearest convenient number. It's usually the tourists that tip the best, rather than people who live here and eat here regularly.

Are you all paid normal wages there though?

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In the U.S. most waitresses are paid about 2-3 dollars an hour which is extremely low, and is why most people say you should tip your waitress which seems a bit altruistic and I suppose could be. However the reason why I think MOST people tip here regardless of the supposed altruistic premise I mentioned is the actual reason that they are providing a service and *usually* deserve compansation for it. This is my reason for tipping.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Greets all -

This is my first post on this board - I was very excited to discover this forum tonight. I hope to read a lot more threads and post more comments soon.

In the past year I have come to feel strongly about the issue of tipping, because after I graduated college I spent 6 months as a waiter while searching for a decent full-time job. Additionally, both my housemates worked various waitering jobs around the city, and one still works at a restaurant on weekends in order to pay off his student loans. I no longer wait tables, and I am currently a full-time technician at a mouse lab studying the molecular and cellular basis of learning and memory.

Firstly, I am dismayed at the posts in which people claim to not leave a tip for merely OK service. Personally I will never leave less than 10% even for pretty terrible service. An exception might be for outright rude service, but I have never encountered that before. I agree with the people who correctly state that in the U.S., the price of the food and the price of the service are seperate entities. The price of the service, of course, is negotiable, though the waiter is quite limited in his ability to negotiate. There are several facts that I would like to point out, because I believe they are important to understanding the tipping paradigm.

1 - Waiters are often not paid AT ALL. Many restaurants cook the books so to speak, so that they do not have to pay their wait staff any wages whatsoever. I worked at an upscale corporate chain restaurant that actually paid $0.50 over the minumum wage, which totalled $2.83 / hr in Philly. After taxes and withholding, I took home about $40 a week from my hourly wages.

2 - There was a comment in the beggining of the thread saying that the owners of a restaurant will not know whether a waiter typically gets good or bad tips and could work for years while giving bad service. This is simply not true. Firstly, the wait staff often works as a team and has many responsibilities besides entering orders and shuttling food from the kitchen to the tables. By working in close quarters with other waiters, bartenders, the managers, and possibly the owner, everyone gets a very accurate idea of how efficient and valuable each person on the team is. Not to mention that with today's computerized systems, managers see your credit card tips as a percentage after every shift. The average % is usually around 18%. Managers will also see a lot of other stats after a waiter's shift, including break down of sales of food and alcohol, # of tables served, table turnaround time, etc. It is easy to know who is a good server and who is a bad server based on who can consistently manage a large number of tables with good turnover, and still have an average or above average tip %.

3 - In nearly every restaurant a waiter must "tip out" the rest of the wait staff. For me, this meant that after each shift I put 3% of my sales total into a pool that was subsequently divied up between the bartender(s), bussers and runners. A fine-dining establishment my roommate worked at required the waiters to tip out 8% of their sales. This is to pay the sommelier, matre di, etc. So when you stiff a waiter, or leave $0.02, you are actually costing him a few bucks out of his pocket. Sure, maybethe service was so bad that he didn't deserve a tip - but was the service that bad that he should pay for you to have eaten there? This also means that those people who think they are being a bit generous,by leaving a couple of bucks are actually just giving the guy enough to tip out the help.

Often, 'average' service is the best a waiter can hope to give despite his best efforts (ie: the restaurant might be understaffed that day so you have 15 tables in 3 disparate sections, there is a line out the door and the kitchen is an hour behind schedule...). But sometimes this minimum level service requires the best a waiter has to offer. The job is tireless and thankless. To say that 'average' service does not deserve a tip is to say that the waiter does not deserve to be paid for the value he is providing. Perhaps you have a problem with the tipping "culture" in the U.S. However, the fact is that it is probably not going to change anytime soon. Understand that the "base" price of eating out is the price on the menu plus 15% If you can't afford it, stay in. If you want to make someone's night who perhaps went out of his way to try and make sure you and your date had a pleasant evening, tip 20-25% It won't go unnoticed.

I'm not sure how this jives with Objectivist theory, but I consider myself a serious student of Objectivism, and the above statements on tipping are what my values have lead me to believe. Perhaps Objectivism would take issue with the tipping culture in the U.S. as being irrational. However, it's not something that it easy to change. I actually believe that tipping at a restaurant serves a social purpose, which was somewhat addressed in earlier posts. I tend to agree that by observing the amount a person tips a waiter/waitress and the way they treat that person provides one of the most useful insights into the person's character. If tipping were like any other transaction, where you negotiate the terms, then trade values, it would not serve this function.

Anyway, my post seems to have rambled on... thanks for hearing me out if you read all the way through :)

James

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